There are numerous search engines available to a user. Some of them are considered to be general purpose search engines (such as Yandex™, Google™ and the like). Others are considered to be vertical search engines—i.e. search engines dedicated to a particular topic of search—such as Momondo™ search engine dedicated to searching flights.
Irrespective of which search engine is used, the search engine is generally configured to receive a search query from a user, to perform a search and to return a ranked SERP to the user. Several attempts have been made to improve the design of the SERP in the strive to enable the user to more easily and faster interact with search results for example in the context of conducting a transaction from a SERP presented to the user as a result of the processing of a search query.
For example, a screenshot 10 depicted in FIG. 1 illustrates a SERP generated by the search engine Yandex™ as a result of a user entering the search query “Fifty Shades of Grey”. The screenshot 10 comprises various fields. Amongst those fields are (1) a query interface 12 and multiple search results. One of the multiple search results is associated with the buying of a ticket to attend a projection of the movie “Fifty Shades of Grey” at various movie theaters. The one of the multiple search results is associated with a widget comprising a button “Buy Ticket” 14 and series of movie showtimes 16. The series of movie showtimes 16 are associated with multiple movie theaters.
Upon clicking the button 14, the user may be presented with a graphical user interface (GUI) component represented by a screenshot 20 in FIG. 1. The screenshot 20 illustrates a movie showtime associated with a first movie theater represented by a result line 22, another movie showtime associated with a second movie theater represented by a result line 24, yet another movie showtime associated with a third movie theater represented by a result line 26 and two movie showtimes associated with a fourth movie theater represented by a result line 28. Each one of the first, second, third and fourth movie theaters represented by the result lines 22, 24, 26 and 28 may be associated with a transaction platform allowing the user to complete the buying of a ticket to attend a selected movie showtime with the corresponding movie theater. As a result of this configuration, the user selecting the movie showtime associated with the first movie theater may be directed to a first transaction platform to complete the buying of ticket. Still under this configuration, the user selecting the movie showtime associated with the second movie theater may be directed to a second transaction platform to complete the buying of ticket, the first transaction platform and the second transaction platform being two different transaction platforms.